Getting good at DotA and at other things

I’ve been playing a LOT of dota recently (around 72 hours in 2 weeeks, including watching a few pro-games) and as usual I’ll try and draw a few generalisations. The thing about Dota (I’ve written previously about what Dota is- a quick google will explain in detail if you require) is that it’s difficult to remain competent if you don’t play continuously. And, the easiest way to increase the MMR (Match Making Ranking- the Elo type rating system implemented in game which indicates how good you are) is to play a lot during short periods than to play a game per 2 days or so. In fact, playing after a week can often give you a rusty feeling and actions that would otherwise come to you naturally in-game have to be thought out and put into action with great effort. It kind of reminds me of how driving a car is. You can be the greatest driver in the world, but if you don’t continuously practise driving, you can quickly become rusty. The wisdom and knowledge about driving will remain but mechanical reactions will not be as quick, and at the end of the day- you won’t be nearly fast enough. My knowledge of Dota mechanics might be far superior to that of certain others who are at a higher MMR than I am, but the fact that I’m not used to playing so much with so many heroes and facing different situations in the recent past means that I am often a few seconds late in making decisions (and at times, making the wrong decisions as well) and this often costs the game.

Your performance seems to be affected by 2 main things- the amount of practice you have and the amount of talent you have. Now what exactly is talent? There are several Dota players who have played thousands of hours more than professionals but are not nearly as good- due to lack of talent. Talent can in turn be divided into several other things- it’s how quickly your brain processes information while playing, helping in split second decisions; it’s how quickly you learn new concepts in the game and can change and adapt to how the game changes (the developers keep making changes to make adjustments for balance) and it’s how you network with the best players in the world, among other things. 

This isn’t the case just in Dota. In most professions, practice is something of a hygiene factor- the same amount of experience may yield different results in differently capable individuals. However, there is no mistaking the fact the practice improves efficiency irrespective of skill level. And in addition to this, practice can be measured (in the corporate world, as experience or as certifications which require preparation) a lot easier than skill (IQ tests, interviews and so on). One could say that intelligence is a measure of how quickly a person learns from practice or experience, and in a lot of cases- imagination of experiences. Now, while intelligence is mostly a gift (it might be partly attributed to experiences in the past- the way one has been brought up etc.) practice is not and thus, practice requires motivation. It is here that even the most skilled do not make it big. Lack of motivation causing lack of practice and thus lacking the basic working knowledge of many things. After all, one can't be a poet without knowing the alphabet.

Elements of love

I love girls. I love the colour red. And I love my country. But what's the difference between these kinds of love? Are all types of love the same? I'm not talking about just love for people (which is often categorised as platonic and amorous)- I'm talking about what makes up amorous and platonic love as well. The building blocks of love, so to speak.
There are mainly three building blocks of love in my opinion and your love for anything or anyone can be explained by combining these three types of love in different proportions. The love for girls is something shared by most guys and is part of my natural instinct. I am not particularly unique as a guy, just because I love girls. This is the same with food- Most people like food since  we have evolved in such a way (people who hated food probably got extinct over time!).

Secondly you have personal preference. I like red. Why?- I'm not really sure. But I've liked red since I was a kid. I feel energised when I look at red. I can't really explain the love though. And, people on an average do not probably prefer red to other colours. It's just something that I loved from when I was a kid by virtue of my DNA (and possible the surrounding I grew up in as well- I won't be able to completely attribute my love to either). Similarly, I love spicy food. It just tastes much better according to me. It might be because I'm born as an Indian and it might be because I grew up here and it might be neither or a combination of both. But it's a personal preference.

The third kind of love is due to some effort you have put in and some compromises you make. You love your wife not because all your instincts tell you to love her. You know that she will be by you side always and so have decided to love her. Of course, your natural love for girls and your personal preference for her body type might help too but they're not the only things. Similarly, you love your country and family and neighbourhood partially because of the distinct effort your put int- a love that is guided by practicality rather than instinct.

So, while analysing how much you love something or someone- ask yourself this question. Is is mostly the first kind of love or is it mostly the third kind of love? You'll be much happier if you do things/spend time with people out of the first and second types of love rather than the third and such love is more long lasting and easily sustainable- this applies to jobs as well. Happy loving.

The best way to learn

From the roughly two years of working experience and roughly four months of teaching experience (along with the several years of 'learning' in school and college) I've formed the opinion that the easiest way to learn something is to practise repeatedly. And also, that irrespective of how unintelligent you are, you can be a master of practically anything- given that you practise enough. If you're not smart enough, you might have to repeat for that IIT-JEE of CFA level 2 a couple of times or even more, while the smart guy might crack it the first time without preparing much. In the real world, there is practically nothing which i believe is beyond the reach of hard work- given a fair share of time. Now, this would open several avenues of opportunity for the intelligent kids much earlier in their life and so, they would on average reach much higher positions compared to their 'dumber' peers (factoring in other things such as emotional intelligence, motivation etc.)

Not only is practising the best best way to learn, it is also the most natural. Human beings are far more comfortable doing things and interacting with people and learning by repeatedly failing/succeeding rather than sitting with books and imagining scenarios and theories. Of course, there are certain fields of science which cannot be put into practice more than a certain extent, but for all fields where this is possible, the former holds true. So the question arises- what kind of field do you want to be in, professionally? Do you want an abstract field where you sit at home and imagine scenarios or do you want a practical field where you can fail repeatedly in the real world and learn from your mistakes? The problem with practical fields is that most people would want to get into them (since it is human nature to want to learn in such a way) and so it would be difficult for you to differentiate yourself from others and thus earn more money. Theoretical fields are more boring but possibly higher paying if you factor in individual hard work (hard work here considers the socialisation requried in the practical field as well, which may not be required in the theoretical one)/motivation required. A mixture of both would be interesting and is something I am particularly interested in. Working in finance is something I thought would be a good mixture and theory and practice, but my experience in consulting and in finance has taught me that the only kind of useful learning that happens at the work place is the learning you get from your teammates, as well as what you learn on the job- rather than concepts from outside. Even the concepts from outside which are sometimes useful are often things which you've seen in a previous organisation. Experience is trusted much more than theory at the workplace.

Gaming is a very interesting profession- one would think that sitting at home by yourself and playing all day would be enough to succeed (given you have the required high skill level cap )but that is far from the truth. To keep abreast with latest ideas and to continuously be motivated, gamers have to socialise extensively on a regular basis or else they are shunned by the gaming community- gamers and followers alike and will likely be financial and professional failures in spite of being skilled individuals. Nonetheless, gaming requires a reasonable mixture of theory and practice- all top professionals stay at the top by regularly playing against each other.

Teaching is another interesting choice which intersects both world nicely. You can be fairly good as a teacher by just being individually brilliant and hard working, but it is difficult to stay motivated without connecting with other teachers and top students continuously. Networking in the academic world is important nevertheless and co-authoring papers with top academicians can get you a long way in terms of knowledge and in terms of recognition by others.

To come to a quick conclusion- So what does it all mean? If practising is the better way to learn in general (except in a few fields)? It means that motivation (to actually try and do things and to fail and learn from them) is the biggest indicator of success in most fields - the ones which require practise i.e.and intelligence/skill does not contribute as much. In certain others though, intelligence is more prominent. But as an individual it's good practice to be good at both -practice and theory.

Dota and Hearthstone

The online game I've played the most is Dota, by a large margin and so I'm quite used to the game's environment- You have a bunch of people (mostly students and young professionals) who play a game for a variety of reasons. Everyone increases in skill by spending more time playing, but there are generally skill caps which players hit- beyond a level they dont increase in skill by just playing more. The caps are different for different players, and obviously professional players cap at very high levels of skill. Hearthstone, which is another game I spent a lot of time on- is rather different. While you naturally increase in skill by playing more of the game, a lot of success depends on the cards you have collected in game (Dota has all heroes/items available to everyone). Cards can be either gained by playing a lot- now I mean a LOT, or you can spend money and just buy them. This is why many players complain about Hearthstone being 'pay to win', since you can definitely pay real life money to have an advantage in the virtual world the game has.

I've always hated pay to win games. 'Mafia Wars' is a game I spent some time on- playing in facebook. I quit the game when I felt the extreme 'pay to win' nature the game had. From an idealistic point of view, Dota requires for more skill than Hearthstone and is far purer a game than Hearthstone just because of the difference in the nature of micro-transactions that can be done. Dota allows you to buy items to use in game, but purely for cosmetic purposes.

Let's look at the competitive scene in both games. Dota has a few teams which are considered as the world's best, and there are small differences as time goes by and the nature of the game itself changes (due to patches to improve the game balace etc.) but good players remain good players more or less. The nature of competitive gaming is so that only the very best are rewarded (unlike real world sports where you can earn a living by being say the 500th best in the world- say at Cricket or Football) and considering this fact, the top players in Dota remain at the top more or less, even if they fall slightly out of the limelight which focuses only on the very best. Hearthstone, in spite of all the luck present in the game- still has a relatively stable pool of world famous players. However this is more due to their personality and ability to network with the world's best, than due to them being decisively better at the game. Someone like a Kolento might actually have been the best at the game- if only the game allowed this. There is too much randomness to the game, and players' success can only be judged by their win percentage over a large number of games against similarly ranked opponents. This is why tournaments often see surprise victors in Hearthstone, but rarely in Dota.

A quick look at twitch however will show that there is almost always a larger number of people watching hearthstone than Dota. There are also atleast as many or close to as many people playing Hearthstone as Dota. But why? - Dota is clearly a far superior game in the sense that it requires more skill than luck or real world money. The answer is that people dont necessarily want to watch a pure game. They dont want to necessarily play a game that measures their skill accurately. They want a little bit of luck- that extra little edge they get by using real world money. This can be compared to the dislike people have for purely capitalistic economies where they get rewarded exactly based on their merits, and not on recommendations by friends and relatives/bribes etc. Add on top of that the marketing budget that Blizzard has for Hearthstone, thanks to all the money made through in-game card sales.

I, however, am a lover of meritocracy- an idealist. And as such, I could not stand Hearthstone for long and got tired of the randomness and luck and the pay-to-win nature of the game. If I was so lazy as to want my real life job to influence my advantage in a game, why play the game at all- it breaks all immersion.

Combining sexiness with responsibility

The most responsible people- often mature adults, can tend to be boring. At least for younger folks, they tend to be boring. While kids talk about fun (but seemingly purposeless ) things such as movies or sports or cute girls/guys and the sort, adults talk about prices, climate, land value etc. Younger folks are generally more into doing things, going out, having fun etc. and are, in general, sexier than the older folks. The gap in sexiness ( I'm generalising the sexiness and the general fun factor that younger people tend to have and calling it as sexiness, henceforth) - let's call it the sexiness gap varies from place to place. In a place like Kerala, it is extremely wide- whereas in a place like Mumbai, where even adults tend to party like crazy, the gap is narrower. The causes are varied, but one major cause seems to be the higher amount of wealth that the younger generation has, compared to their parents- who often had to work hard for their money. The sexiness gap in Mumbai is lesser, since there are several parents who were born rich as well. Another reason is the difference in entrepreneurial spirit across places. In a place like Kerala where people are naturally risk averse and hence averse to starting enterprises, people value responsible ways of living much higher than in a place like Mumbai or Bangalore where there are smart entrepreneurs who cannot afford to be boring- then they will fail to attract investors and/or customers.

The recent (~May/June 2015) Malayalam move Premam has become a major hit and as of now the 2nd highest grossing Malayalam movie of all time- with around 60crores over a budget of 5 crores. The top spot remains with Drishyam, which had nearly universal acclaim from people of all age groups. I'm personally a bigger fan of Premam, eventhough the focus of the movie is a little one-sided, since it talks about the good things related to enjoying college life, drinking, smoking, partying with friends and not having any purpose in life but to stalk girls and carefully avoids anything negative. The movie was a fun watch however and I could relate to a lot of things I saw (as would so many others- including adults, who would've thought of their younger years). I am mature enough to not take the movie's message without questioning it, and I believe it is not the moviemakers' responsibility to ensure that all movies have great messages. But the 'responsible' adult will fail to love the movie.

Nivin Pauly in Premam is indeed sexy. He is tough, looks tough, has a bunch of tough friends, hangs out in cars and bikes, drinks and smokes a lot and all that jazz. The guy however, has no clue about life. Or love. Or anything apart from looking cool. Now this is the diametric opposite of the 'responsible' adult who thinks only about the latest onion prices or some accident someone met with or some issue which came up in the state assembly.

As adults, we need to strike a balance and understand the tradeoff between responsibility and sexiness. We need to be responsible enough to manage to a reasonable extent by ourselves and yet fun enough. We should be positive about life and focus on doing things rather than sitting back and criticising those who do. The balance depends on individual preference as well- some people prefer to be highly sexy and not at all responsible, and some prefer to be highly responsible and don't care if they're any fun to hang out with. A relatively short post, by in my opinion a very important idea.

Adult Fantasy - The Witcher

A few weeks after completing The Witcher 2, I'm still deeply affected by the game. I probably did not enjoy playing it as some of the other games I've played, but the game is brilliant when it comes to providing a rewarding experience. To illustrate- playing a GTA game driving a tank around and blowing everything up; or playing Far Cry 3/4 and roaming around the jungle killing thousands of terrorists and wild animals etc. can be fun- but there is no deeper meaning to it. Witcher is slightly less fun to play but ensures that you have an experience you'll remember forever.

I ended up playing it because of the incredible ratings it had and the hype that surrounded it- mostly related to it being a mature, adult kind of game- as compared to relatively childish RPGs. I'd however found most RPGs to be mature enough for my liking and some were more mature than others- Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas quickly come to mind. I had played Witcher 1 when Witcher 2 was receiving a lot of hype and praise (thanks to my old computer which couldnt run Witcher 2 at the time) and hated the first game. The fantasy and RPG elements were decent. So was the storytelling and graphics. But the gameplay was so terrible that playing the game felt like enduring torture to see the cutscenes in between which we would get as a reward for having to go through the boring gameplay.

I was far more impressed with the start of Witcher 2. The storytelling was amazing- gameplay was challenging but manageable (during the introduction phase) and graphics and sound were all great. The game however had a limited area to roam around in (compared to open ended games like Far Cry, Fallout, Elder Scrolls); and there were several limitations on the things you could do in the game. Geralt (the protagonist) does not have a button to jump, and this limited him from going to areas that seemed easily accessible, but for the fact that the game designers did not want you to go there. After the introduction, the game puts your skills to test and pits you against incredibly powerful monsters (especially when compared to how you start the game relatively weak and then grow in power). In fact, the fighting is not that complicated and does not require pinpoint precision or timing- since Geralt's actions are a bit arbitrary and he will jump and swing a sword sometimes, and sometimes swing the sword without jumping when u press the same button- it seemed to be completely random behaviour (and a quick google search confirmed that it is). And it wasn't even like I was going around searching for difficult monsters (which I admittedly did in the beginning and then gave up)- the main storyline itself was too difficult to manage on 'normal' diffuculty. I could theoretically beat all the monsters by trying really hard and rolling and evading a hundred times to hit a monster once, come back, heal and repeat. It would take too much time to kill any of the stronger monsters and playing the game seemed like a waste of time. And so, I uninstalled the game and went back to playing DotA instead.

Thankfully, I decided to give the game another try (and actually had to google for combat tips before doing so). This time, the difficulty seemed a bit more manageable although still decidedly difficult. I could actually start enjoying the gameplay and understand the nuances of dodging, blocking etc. as I played the game more. The fighting mechanics were not 100% perfect as I'd mentioned earlier but it was ok. This wasnt a game about fighting - it's all about the story and atmosphere and the fighting is just icing on the cake.

So what's so different about witcher? Firstly, the protagonist is not a babyfaced cleanshaved guy (and for Skyrim fans, not an ugly lizard or elf either). Muscular body, Scars on his face, tainted soul, somewhat aged, and to top it off- with grey hair- and is still more masculine than any other RPG hero I've seen. His 'neutrality' is famous across the world (he is a witcher- and to be more precise the witchers' neutrality is what is famous) and in most cases he will do what he feels is right- in a world filled with evil and where most decisions seems to benefit evil in some way. Neutrality also means that in situations where he has an option which benefits him or his loved ones, he will probably go for what benefits himself and his loved ones, rather than an alternative choice which will harm him- unless of course the first choice is completely immoral. The witcher's world is filled with evil monsters which will not see reason and have to be slain through physical strength- this is a contrast to other games where villains/monsters can be good at heart and can be persuaded to stop fighting you/join you. Bethesda games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls have 'Speech'/'Persuasion' as skills that you can level up so that you can avoid fighting and instead argue yourself out of difficult situations. In the harsh world of witcher, although arguing yourself out of situations is not always impossible- in most cases it is not an option at all. This is something I can relate to as an adult. Adults often believe so strongly in their faiths and beliefs that it is often impossible to try and convince them otherwise- the participants in the holocaust, ISIS etc. being proofs.

The game is also absolutely unashamed of being sexy. The main characters- male of female are physically attractive and completely unashamed in showing it. Sex is anything but taboo- and you can make out with women even after committing yourself with Triss- who is the main female character in the game.

Witcher is a genetically engineered human (a mutant) and has more strength/agility etc. than normal people. But the difference is not much. Defeating a normal soldier at the beginning of the game (just after getting out of prison and with not much skills/equipment) is quite a challenge and the challenge remains till the end of the game- where a handful of normal soldiers can prove to be too much for witcher. Drinking potions before fights is a way to get stronger- these poisons are poisonous according to the game lore and thus Geralt can drink a maximum of 3-4 poitions, depending on how toxic they are. Potions help make Geralt stronger and reduce the pain. Potions could be a reference to alcohol and drugs that people use in real life to fight through the pain.

Games these days have the player going from one location to another- knowing exactly where to go and what to do. The witcher has the balls to mix things up a bit, without making it too difficult for the player. There is a hand-drawn minimap that the player has access to. But fast-travel is not present in the game, meaning that you have to walk to a dungeon or a forest to complete a quest and actually WALK BACK. In Skyrim (and most RPG games), there is a fast travel system which lets you double click on any area in the map and you can 'fast travel' if there are no enemies nearby. This would make several adventures less dangerous since you know while going into an endless dungeon that you can just get out through an opening and fast travel home safe and sound. The Witcher's world is just small enough to not make all the running around too boring- yet it is just large enough to make it seem like a huge adventure when you go around exploring. While each quest in Skyrim would have a quest marker telling exactly where to go (and if this were not enough, there is a spell in-game which guides you toward the 'right' path) the witcher doesn't always do this. While the quest marker system is applied to certain quests to make the game less focused on mundane details (for example, if a character tells you that something can be found near the North gate of the city, and if your character knows about this north gate, there is no reason for the marker to not be there). However, there are certain quests which involve searching for clues for a missing person- or searching for information on how to kill a monster- which are completely open ended and could be optional at the same time. For instance (spoiler alert- major spoilers ahead), in the city of flotsam, you are told that they may be an easy way of killing a Kayran- a monster troubling the city's docks. You have the option of searching/asking around the city and its forests to find the Kayran's weaknesses. If you find a potion that makes you immune against the Kayran's poison, your fight will be much easier than otherwise. There is no option for you but to master navigating through the forests and dungeons that you find yourself in- and actually looking around and familiarising yourself with the locations is much easier than opening the minimap and finding your way back.

There are also several quests that cannot progress unless a certain other quest is completed. Things just seem to happen to Geralt as he goes around the city doing things- rather than how it is in Skyrim or Mass Effect where you explicitly decide to do quests in an order and complete them one by one.

Coming to choice within the game- this is easy the biggest game I've played with regard to options. While choosing different actions in game in normaly RPGs results in a different ending or a different set of cutscenes and dialogues here and there, Witcher 2 takes choice to a whole new level. There are enormous sections of the game which become completely inaccessible to you, depending on your actions in game. More than half of the game isn inaccessible and cannot be experienced by you in one playthrough (since certain options are mutually exclusive)- this is how serious Witcher takes your decisions. And the decisions are never simple- FROM choosing between the asshole Iorveth who kills humans and fights for equal rights for non humans who have been shunned by the rulers of Flotsam; and Roche- the nice guy who spared your life but fights for an idiot king who wages wars and kills non humans without reason AND choosing between the rich and seemingly noble king who is accused by the poor of killing a sorceress in spite of no evidence and the poor people who are completely illiterate and are seemingly accusing the king only because he is rich TO choosing to let a ghost take revenge on the scientists who did experiments on him and his friends to kill him or letting the scientists live in peace. There are plenty of choices to be made- and most of them are choices you might wonder about later on and think about whether you did the right thing. In fact, the main villain in the game who assassinates kings of several kingdoms and causes huge chaos in Geralt's life by making Geralt seem like a kingslayer, is a man who has a reasonable explanation for his actions and Geralt has the option of not fighting him at the end of the game and letting him live. As in real life, choices are not clearly demarcated as right and wrong (this was a problem in Mass Effect, where the right and wrong actions would be even given different colours) and quests just happen to you instead of you deciding to do certain quests. The main storyline is intricately woven around the side quests and unlike Skyrim where you explicitly decide to do the next step in the main quest, or not- in Witcher you are often left wondering which quests are mandatory and which ones are optional. At the end of it all, you feel in power of what happens to you and the decisions you made might've been wrong but it doesnt matter- you made them and you have no choice but to stand by them.

The fact that Witcher is based on a novel helps to make the lore consistent. The enormous number of choices and the lack of a clear cut good and evil make it all realistic. Spectacular graphics and sound acting help as well. The game also accepts you as an adult and censors no violence- and the scene where a sorceress has her eyeballs taken out as punishment for her actions, is an example. Witcher is the only game where I willingly bought books from merchants in order to learn about the monsters in game - just so that the realism remains in tact. (In other games, I might as well google it- if things become that difficult) And with that I'd like to end this piece on witcher. Looking forward to playing Witcher 3 and to more adult fiction- of monsters, blood and sex. While normal games make you feel guilty for your thirst for violence and sex- which tend to be fillers in between,.. Witcher justifies it.

The scientific side of Quora

I've never been a big fan of Quora, or the hype surrounding Quora in spite of very close friends being huge fans of it. And I've never been able to pin point the reason for the success of Quora as well- especially in India, given that most questions asked on Quora would have answers provided on wikipedia or on some similar source which is more or less accurate, and in any case more reliable than posts on Quora. Let's try and pin point.

Explanations provided on Wikipedia and/other technical sources tend to be too technical, and catered towards the academic- while people googling things out tend to not be academics (I hope). Thus, the target audience here from Quora's point of view is the average person, who wants to either prepare for exams, enhance knowledge for work related requirements, or is curious is general about scientific concepts (happens a lot in Asian countries especially- higher penetration in India has to do partly with our comfort with English).

Sites like Investopedia tend to give simpler explanations, but still maintain a certain amount of professionalism while giving examples and would not cite cricketers or bollywood actors or other things which Indians relate to (or other similar things that we can easily relate to as a global citizen as well). We love pictures, examples and simple explanations which may not be 100% accurate but are easy to grasp and provide us maybe 80-90% of the picture. These explanations generally have more value to the public as a whole who may not 1)have the technical knowledge to understand complete definitions and 2)may not have the patience to understand the whole thing

Let us look at the people who might be capable of providing answers to a technical question. (I pause here to note that not all questions on Quora are technical questions, but the success of Quora I believe is because of scientific questions like say 'Why do we have day and night' answered in very simple terms but without sacrificing too much on completeness. )We have the academic who answered the same question in a journal which was in turn quoted on Wikipedia who would answer it in a complete fashion, with a technical explanation and maybe an obscure example. Suppose we take the function of financial markets as a question and the journal would have explanations about moving money across time and states of nature and will provide a few examples with notations that may be a bit alien to the average reader. Now, an ex-VP of an investment bank would give a much simpler explanation than the academic because he has grasped the essense of the question much better than the academic, has seen real world applications or examples, and also knows better - how to capture the imagination of the listener while answering a question.He would talk about a student who hit a lottery who wants to move his money ahead in time since he cant consume it all at once, or a poor farmer who wants to hedge and move money across states of nature (I'm not really trying to be too creative here- the VP would obviously have better definitions).

Now what exactly do we want simple answers?- this is particularly relevant to Indians, but applicable across the world as well. People are lazy (in spite of having enough time on their hands, are unwilling to invest it in learning terminoogy or concepts), have too little time to spend on understanding answers (might be a senior professional not well versed in technical terminology) and in general, value answers with a practical outlook (as humans, we often understand better with illustrations, examples etc). Also, time is a limited resource and lesser time spent on understanding a concept is a kind of value addition a well. Thus, the time that a person spends in answering a single question- putting his practical knowledge and spending his time into the answer, can save the time of millions of others and help them relate the answer to day to day things that they experience. The success of Quora is in getting the people who answer recognition within the website and thus give them an incentive to write great answers. Asking questions isn't easy either and such people (who ask crisp, practically relevant questions) are also appreciated by the community and Quora facilitates this.

Philosophical questions are also a big draw that Quora has to offer- perhaps I'll write about it some other time when I have a clearer idea about the success of that part.

God, hope and power

Done with the 5th season of Game of Thrones and so far the least impressive (as in, did not make an impression that will last long). Don't worry- there won't be spoilers if you haven't seen the season yet, except for a very minor one. You have been warned, nevertheless.

The idea of God is an interesting one. As I've probably written about him in the past, I firmly believe that he is a construct of human imagination which serves a very real purpose- one which has become less relevant over time but is still very important to a majority of human population. The fact that all Gods of all religions have such strong connections with humans as compared to other creatures is a basic indication that this is the case. But I will not go into the details of proving why God probably doesn't exist and rejoice at the fact that his existence doesn't really matter- since he is all loving and would not differentiate between his children on the basis of the love his children have for him. Thus I am sure that I will be loved by the God who does not exist- even more so than others who waste time trying to impress him.

While the idea of God and the cause of his creation are interesting things (kings and noblemen probably created him to authenticate their power, and to control citizens through fear of divine punishment in case they escaped punishment on earth)- what is even more interesting is how God has completely overdone his stay. A concept created thousands of years ago, it is amazing how God is well and truly alive to this day- where thousands of people die in his name every year.

One reason I've always thought of is the hope that God gives us- humans don't always get what they want, and can lose hope and thus the willingness to live. The fact that there is someone looking after us gives us the hope that better days might come. Thus, a sense of purpose is also created within people and thus they lead happier lives, and have a sense of purpose while doing things to survive. The hope that God will help you with getting a better job, or in getting a better girl, or in buying that new phone will keep you from giving up altogether.

Only recently did I think of a side-effect of this hope creation. Certain people who are highly intelligent, yet realise the true meaningless of life may not be able to live with their sense of powerlessness and hope. They might not survive long enough to reproduce and even if they do- may not do well enough in life with all their sadness. A highly philosophical person would find life much less fun to live than a high flying investment banker who fucks around in Beverly Hills. Thus, by a process of natural selection people who are highly skeptical- at least some of them become extinct and are replaced by people who are have hope and faith (and God certainly helps).

 A connected, and less important reason might be the difficulty people have in comprehending the choices in front of them and in knowing they have an eternal father figure to protect them even if their real world parents are not. God can also be a convenient construct who will help you reinforce your beliefs (which may include questionable ones like killing Jews or killing non Muslims, or indeed less questionable ones like cheating or stealing to help your own family survive).

The most recent reason I observed has to do a lot with the corporate world. While this reason is again connected to the other two, it is a fresh perspective and helps explain the often seen higher amount of faith that adults display in God, compared to their younger folks in the same society.  In GoT Season 5 *Minor Spoiler Ahead* Cersei is kept in the dungeon by the High Sparrow and his followers. This is probably the worst time Cersei has gone through till now, even though she's had pretty much half a dozen blood relatives murdered. She's deprived of food, water and company and placed in a dungeon. Once in a while she is teased by a lady- lets call her 'lady' for now. This lady confidently defies all the threats that Cersei (the queen mother) makes about how she will make the lady regret every bit of what she was doing. The lady goes on to tease Cersei with water and ensures her of being given water if she confesses to her sins (of incest). Cersei's stubbornness in refusing to beg or plead for mercy is understandable given her family's position. However, the same amount of stubbornness is shown by the lady (who ends up being the more stubborn of the two in the end). BUT HOW? The lady is an absolute nobody, yet she gets the power (along with the other followers of the 'High Sparrow') to keep Cersei in their prison in spite of being absolute nobodies in the real world. The answer of course is their faith. They believe in the power that a queen has- but more than that, they believe in God, who has higher power than those who have power over them on earth. From our horrible bosses, or the parents that we hate or the corrupt politicians- to this day it is a problem for humans that they are governed by people whom they despise. A higher power which no one can see, which supports their beliefs is so much more convenient than reality.


For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention a bias believers have in perceiving events that often helps sustain their belief- they would notice successful prayers more than failed ones and this also contributes a lot to how adults have stronger faith over time. Another reason is the high amount of responsibility adults tend to have, resulting in lack of self belief in handling all the responsibility by themselves. The list is far from complete, but Ive highlighted the important reasons hopefully.

To conclude I should say I do love God- not because I am selfish and expect anything in return (I do not assume God is selfish enough to love only those who love him), but because I am in awe of the magnificent creation of man that gives billions of people a reason to live. I should also mention that a strong morality, and love of human beings is absolutely essential for sustained happiness of an atheist, in case you're a non believer.

Hidden market mechanics in day to day life

Basic market mechanics of supply and demand deciding the price can be seen everywhere- and often in places you would not notice. I've probably talked about this earlier but I'll repeat it and try and elaborate the concept further- since childhood I've wondered how on earth I would have enough knowledge to justify being paid tends of thousands of rupees per month for whatever job I would end up doing. It WAS to an extent lack of self confidence, but I would have the same question for a large number of my batchmates (I would ask the question only to myself of course) who were on average dumber than me. The truth is however that it doesn't matter how bad our knowledge is- the fact is that other people are equally bad at it while starting off on their jobs and hence whatever supply you give them is high enough for their demand to be satisfied at the price they take you at.Also, the average person's skill level at a particular level in a firm will correspond to the average person's salary at that level, especially for large firms, provided the company has existed for long enough for the balancing to take place. Imbalances in skill level and salary will even out over time and will reach an equilibrium based on certain other factors (such as if the location is too remote, the salary would be slightly higher than it otherwise would). The comparison to demand and supply doesn't make a lot of sense I admit- BUT the fact that everything is decided by relative values and not by absolute values is fact enough for it to be entirely market based. For many of you though, this is a very obvious fact. Let us move on to other less obvious things.

Market mechanics are also evident in friendships- especially adult friendships. People who are high achievers, highly rich, social butterflies, good looking etc tend to form groups based on these generally desirable traits (I'm talking about the majority here- a minority may value other things). The cool group could for instance may have an attractive girl, a rich but not so attractive guy, a high flying corporate guy, a social butterfly etc. You are given membership in a group based on what you can give back to them- may not be money or good looks or coolness or anything in particular but can be a combination of these traits which make it worth their while to hang out with you. Friendship isn't all about getting benefits out of each other though- it's also about having fun hanging out with such people (people who have desirable characteristics are generally fun to hang out with, and would make friends wherever they go and having such friends enables them to get more friends and thus snowball). A more obvious example is a relationship where market mechanics are a lot more obvious- being rich, cool, feminine or masculine etc are mostly desirable characteristics and you would look for a partner who has these desirable characteristics at least as much as you feel you can give them. There is a a degree of realism our mind has when it comes to setting expectations from what you get out of your partner (based on your assessment of yourself, and past failures in wooing possible partners) which is similar to the price expectation you have out of a phone with a certain set of features or a kilo of tomato based on its quality.

An even less obvious application is in morality. Good and evil do not exist in the pure sense of the words and are judged relative to how good and how evil people in the society generally are. For instance, in a Hindu village where it's normal to discriminate against a Muslim, and say, not allow him to stay in your house for rent, it isn't considered a sin to do the same. The relativeness of good and evil becomes very clear as you become a grown up, when suddenly you start hurting other people and being selfish and still not feel that guilty just because you feel others would do the same thing. As an adult, finding a good (moral) friend is often about picking the least rotten out of the rotten apples. And as I've mentioned in a previous post, given the limited amount of time we have to life- it is often unadvisable to question the quid pro quo and a lot easier to accept these things as part of human existence. The relation to market mechanics of course comes from the fact that - similar to how there is no direct match between your skills on your job and your pay  (it depends on how skilled people around you are), there is no way to measure good or evil without the whole market that exists in goodness and evilness. If you're providing goodness at a lesser price than the market (you are less irritating or something along those lines), you will be considered as a good friend.  But of course, morality is the least important consideration adults have while making friends(slightly drifting from the topic here)- material benefit is the most important.

The last application I'm going to talk about and the least obvious of the ones here is happiness- your happiness is not an absolute thing that can be obtained by completing certain tasks. Firstly, it depends on how well off the people around you are- with respect to the things you value (looks, money etc). Secondly and more importantly, it depends on how life treats you with respect to how you expect life to treat you. In short, if you are happy with the effort you are putting into living and are happy with the results life is giving you- you are happy in life. This is similar to paying a price and being happy with the product's quality at the given price. The only way to be unhappy is to overpay for the goods (putting in too much effort for no results) or not paying enough for the goods you want even though you realise you're not paying enough (this is due to lack of motivation and is a different topic altogether- the discussion here is more about disappointment than with existential crises, and so lack of motivation wont be explored further)

Belief and over-selling

Success beyond a certain point comes only with belief; self-belief, belief in people or belief in a theory. At the lower levels of any field, you can improve by just practicing by yourself and learning how to do things. You can learn how to play a sport or how to draw pictures or how to do simple math by just reading up and practising these things. But if you want to be among the best, as you climb up the ladder in each field, the importance of confidence keeps increasing. The possible reason I'll come to later, but first I'll try and give some examples.

In any field, after a certain point people will invariably question you and there will be phases of self doubt- these can be short phases where someone insults u and you feel bad or longer phases of failure and introspection that artists tend to have (artists are more susceptible since art is a more subjective field). Almost all sports consider the word 'form' to be important, and 'form' is all about self belief. Someone who has had recent success tends to believe more in himself/herself and will thus get more success. Although not exactly snowballing, this is an effect which further compounds snowballing (refer previous post). And the reason why form and self belief are so important is because of how the human brain works(performs better when confident) and how the society considers confidence. There's a saying 'If you don't believe in yourself, who will?' and this is a statement that all societies go by. They expect you to be fully confident about yourself in case you are capable. All humans are constantly expected to over-sell themselves and never be rational or realistic about themselves. If you really think about it, the statement does not make much sense. A great artist may not know that his work of art is great, but the society expects him to know, and thus only the confident artists who labour on in spite of self doubt and believe in themselves in spite of criticism will make it through.

Coming to why the society expects you to know you're good- it's partly branding. I'll probably have to write a separate piece about this. The idea is that human beings often do not have the time or resources to make a perfectly informed decision and thus they go by brands. We buy and Audi car knowing that the engineers at Audi are brilliant people compared to the engineers at Suzuki who are not as brilliant. Brilliant engineers at the same time who seek jobs know that Audi is the place to be, compared to Suzuki since Audi would have smarter colleagues, better technology and of course a better pay- which is due to the value that customers give them. Success leads to more success. We do not have the time to learn everything about car design, apparel design and the design of each and every thing that we buy. Personal branding is a relatively simple thing as compared to corporate branding. We project ourselves as people whom we wish to be perceived as, and this is called personal branding. Some people do not put in an effort to artificially portray things they are not and hence they brand themselves as .... themselves. On the other hand, successful people often portray themselves as larger than life. Narendra Modi, the Indian PM is one of the first names which come to my mind when thinking of branding.

So the society judges you by how confident you are. But is that all? Not really- after attaining a certain level of success, the recognition you get is based on how better you are compared to others. (the full reason I'll hopefully put in another write-up) Let me illustrate- the lead designer/engineer at Sony Walkman during the late 90s and 2000s, whoever it was, was most probably a brilliant man. During his initial days, he would've worked really hard and improved on himself by just being able to generate ideas and designs which are objectively amazing. But after becoming the head of Walkman products, he has to compete with Apple. And that is where he completely failed. He not only has to create a  good product, he has to be confident about it (and thus spend marketing expenditure on it) and he has to compete with the personal charisma of Steve Jobs while coping with all the criticism that comes from the public. At high levels, people use all kinds of techniques to try and demotivate you. Professional gamers will make fun of that fact that your girlfriend is ugly compared to theirs and professional cricketers will make fun of your ethnicity and call you a monkey (ask Andrew Symonds). Without belief, you cannot survive the onslaught - and more importantly you cannot intimidate others to reign supreme. I'm not the kind of guy who would use these (seemingly) immoral ways to give a boost to my success, but I can definitely understand people who do- and given that we are human beings we will all have to have that extra bit of self-confidence to survive.

I've talked about professional gamers, sportspeople and managers. These are positions which involve a lot of public attention and thus people are expected to criticise each other that little bit more. Even in academics, self belief is all important. In economics we have Keynes, Friedman, Hayek and dozens of other economists come up with completely different schools of thought on the same subject and believe with all their life in their respective schools. Tesla believed fully in the power of Alternating Current (AC) while Edison did so in Direct Current (DC) even though there was no justification available at the time for the superiority of either. Thus, even in academics where objective truth is expected to prevail, there needs to be great self belief in the idea for the scientist/researcher to put in effort and to persist enough for it to be even considered by peers and the community at large- 'Why would the community believe in your research if you yourself do not?'.

Belief often leads to achievement, even if the belief is irrational. Overselling yourself is a risk which is generally worth taking. Failure obviously will make you look a little fake, but people generally understand the requirement of overselling and thus it's not a big deal even if you, say, claim to be good at presenting something and then mess it up. You will eventually mess it up enough times to be confident enough that you wont mess up- given that you've been there 10 times while the guy who is supposed to be your alternative choice has done it only once since he isn't confident enough about succeeding.

And the importance of belief is high in fields which are subjective in nature. For example, as an academician you need less confidence as opposed to an investment professional who has to pick stocks (yes, picking stocks is very subjective) .

This was a long post which I had to cut short at places and link to other articles (1 past,2 future) but probably the most sensible one I've written in some time :)


PS: Whenever I explain a cause-effect relationship, there would be obviously a huge number of causes and a huge number of effects in turn. I try to highlight the most important ones, since it's not possible to list everything (though the title of the blog is shandification).

Snowballing and the beginning of a more practical phase

Growing up sucks. I don't think many people would disagree to this. Only the really boring nerds grow up and have more fun out of life- speaking of which I don't complain as much as others do about growing up, since I'm definitely more of a nerd than the average person. And since I'm growing up and all (an adult by pretty much all definitions by now), I'll be talking lesser about abstract things and more about things with certain practical relevance although a good number of topics will still have few applications- they might still just be commentary on the 'adult' things that people do. But less of things like philosophy within games and all that.

Having said that, it's a bit ironic that I'll be talking about snowballing- which is term with distinct gaming roots and its relevance in real life. In certain games like DotA and to an extent even in CS, there is a certain advantage that the winner gets. A successful early game in DotA is generally going to result in a much better middle game and late game. Someone who has an excellent early game will have a good game even with a mediocre middle/late game. Better items, levels and powers which are obtained make the rest of the game much easier to win. But snowballing is when you have an excellent early game, middle game and have done almost everything perfectly till the point of time in question. This instantly reminds me of toppers who top the class through school, college and what not and finally end up in IIM A, B etc. A student who had a bad 10th will not get into an IIM A or B and irrespective of how much he tries after that. Of course, admission criteria are artificially created rules but there are reasons for such rules to be there in the first place and a major reason is that human beings snowball.

The biggest 'achievers' in life - most of them snowballed. From Zuckerberg to Sachin, these are people who are talented Yes, but worked and achieved nearly flawlessly throughout the years that mattered. It's no secret either that continuous hard work results in success- even if you fail you will still be relatively very successful compared to what would've been had you not even tried. This isn't to say that it's not possible to start late- it's definitely possible but the fact remains that snowballers have a much easier time succeeding than others and often reach levels that others find absolutely impossible. While you can quit a game if you're having a bad early game in DotA, it is not quite the same in real life. Do not fear however, for we have brains which automatically adjust ambition to the levels that are realistically possible for us and of course if you're brain cannot do that you will lead a sad, delusional life forever. For the rest of us though, we will be happy most of the time with what we have, while having just enough unhappiness with ourselves to want to live and learn and improve on a daily basis.

Evil

The concept of evil is an interesting one- as kids we were told that some people are evil and that there are certain things that we do that would make us evil as well- lying, deceit and so forth. There were evil characters in fairy tales and cartoons and what not and the reason why such a black and white distinction between good and evil is made while telling stories to kids is partly because kids can easily relate to such explanations rather than ones saying that certain a character for instance is mostly good but does very evil things sometimes OR that the villain in a story has certain good things about him. As we grow up, we realise that there is a lesser distinction between good and evil and some may even theorise that there may be no absolute evil or good and bad and that it is all a matter of perception. Grown ups read fiction and watch movies which evidence this- adult themed stories have complex characters and in some cases the protagonist borderlines being pure evil himself- Breaking Bad for instance has a protagonist who was fairly good for most part of the series but became purely evil in the latter parts. I do not subscribe to either of these extreme beliefs- I do think that people and actions can be evil at an objective level(killing someone to make personal profits for example is evil, even if you are doing it for your family- it becomes slightly more evil if you're doing it for fun) but I also believe that nothing is absolutely good or absolutely evil.

Some say that there is no good without evil- and my interpretation of this saying is that we cannot identify good actions as 'good' if there were no evil actions. This is similar to identifying darkness as the absence of light. This isn't 100% true but is mostly accurate. A person can be good by helping others- this doesn't need anyone else's evil in order to be considered as good. However, someone who doesn't hurt other people becomes good only because there are other people who do hurt and kill people.

An interpretation of evil that I thought of recently is something like this: There are different ways of being good and some actions can be interpreted as good or evil depending upon the values of the person analysing them. There are numerous tradeoffs which we have to make in life and the moral consequences are often blurred. Slacking off a bit at work to come home early and spending time with your family can be good or bad depending on the work you normally do at your office, the time you spend normally with your family, the occassion on the specific day and a whole lot of other factors.

Now that this has been established- i introduce a term 'Renegade'. The term probably has a meaning different from how I'm about to use it here. The meaning I imply is the one that the Mass Effect series of games uses. As the protagonist, you are given several moral choices in the game that make us ether a 'Paragon' or a 'Renegade' to different degrees and this has an effect on the rest of the games. A paragon typically takes the safest and the 'by-the-book' approach to solving problems, empathises heavily with other characters and has a lot of patience in solving issues. A renegade is a 'no-nonsense' kind of person who wants quick resolution to problems and typically does not care much for others' feelings. To give an example, as the captain of a ship in the game - a paragon leader would forgive a crew member for making a mistake and request him to not repeat it while a renegade would shout and him and ask him to do a 100 sit ups as punishment. Although the renegade seems to be more evil, there is nothing to suggest that it is absolutely wrong to go the renegade way all the time. As human beings who live in a limited time frame ad have access to limited resources to carry out the things we wish to do, there will be times when it's more correct to go tough on your friends or enemies and be more direct in getting things done. Thus, you are a hero who saves the universe irrespective of whether you are a pure paragon or a pure renegade or a mixture (more realistically) of both.

My theory is that evil is born from a person who thinks that he's being a renegade but mis-judges his actions which are actually evil. (To repeat what I'd mentioned in an earlier paragraph, I do believe that there are some actions which are evil at an objective level.) Thus, when you have, say the option to wipe out a harmless alien species so that you get paid by warmongering species and thus improve humanity's resources- it would be evil. It seems that evil is thus a misjudgement of actions which are unacceptably selfish. Renegades can possibly be explained in a better way as people who do selfish actions(for their family/planet/species/themselves) without causing too much harm (but a little harm nevertheless) to others. Coming home early on a Friday to spend an evening with her after a long while while sacrificing a bit of work in office and making your juniors do some extra work is thus a renegade action. And as I've mentioned in a previous post, selfish (and more specifically- renegade) is sexy.

To summarise what I've written so far, evil is when you are too selfish while thinking that you are not. And apparently, this goes against what I earlier said- the idea that there is in fact pure evil. But as human beings on this planet and given that we live at this time and space- given such constraints, I'm sure that there are things that we can consider evil at an objective level. To summarise again, at a philosophical level evil is subjective and is when you misjudge acceptable levels of selfishness; however in practice there is always pure evil in any society in the world at any given point in time. I should mention a sentence about people who do evil actions without reason (the actions are thus pure evil) and these people are sociopaths/psychopaths/people with serious mental disorders.